Rotten Shame

By Stephen Koepp

Turned sweet and bright red by unusually warm spring weather, Oregon's strawberries ripened early this year into a bounteous crop of some 80 million lbs. But last week Roy Malensky, a grower in Hillsboro, Ore., who supplies berries for such products as Breyers Ice Cream and Dannon Yogurt, stood in his giant strawberry patch and mourned row upon row of darkened, spoiled fruit. His expected loss: $100,000. To the north, meanwhile, Richard Cowin, a black- cherry grower in Wapato, Wash., watched downheartedly as his crop began to shrivel in the sun.

The rotting shame developing in the Pacific Northwest last week was only the first sign of a crisis that could spread through other agricultural regions of the U.S. this summer as an unintended consequence of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The problem: a dire shortage of migrant workers, many of them illegal aliens from Mexico who are staying home or sticking close to the border this summer because they are afraid of deportation under the new law. Last week more than one-third of Oregon's $30 million strawberry crop was rotting because only about half the state's usual contingent of 20,000 migrant workers have shown up this spring. Declaring the situation an "unprecedented labor crisis," Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt predicted that the state would lose as much as $300 million of its usual $1 billion annual crop of fruits, vegetables and flowers.

The spectacle of wasted crops spread jitters across the rest of the Farmbelt, especially in northern states that depend on migrants from the Southwest. In the Fruit Ridge region of Michigan, growers are scrambling to find cherry pickers, but the real worry is about the peach crop in July and apple harvest in August through October. Other worker shortages could reach from the tobacco fields of the Carolinas to the poultry farms of Texas.

The new immigration law provides tough penalties for employers who fail to make sure that every one of their alien workers possesses a temporary resident permit. To obtain that status, alien farm laborers must prove that they worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 90 days in each of the past three years, or in just one year if they harvested perishable crops. Workers are staying away right now because they fear getting caught without the permit, thus jeopardizing their chances for permanent residence and eventual U.S. citizenship. Many Mexicans are still struggling with their applications for permits, which in many cases must be filed through the U.S. embassy in Mexico City.

Even when more migrant workers get their permits, farm laborer shortages are unlikely to go away. Once aliens obtain legal status, they will no longer be quite so willing to do tedious, low-paying farm work, since they can then apply for any job they want. Thus growers are already beginning to boost wages for pickers of apricots and cherries by as much as 30%, to $6 an hour in some areas. As a result, some varieties of fruit may cost the consumer 4% to 6% more this summer than last.

With reporting by Alan Ota/Portland and Richard Woodbury/Houston